Quick Notes about Treadmill Desks

Updated 12.16.2014; reformatted 8.29.2015
Quick notes about treadmill desks based on the open tabs of my browser after searching Twitter for a bit. I’m still undecided about Twitter and how useful it really is. I have a Twitter account, and I do post there sporadically. However, I don’t have a “follow me” button on any of my websites, because I’m not sure if I want to link my personal account with the websites. Twitter I use to make interjections and pithy comments, not to really discuss anything. Not really possible to discuss much in 140 characters, of course.

But now that I think about it, I’m about to write an entire post (or more as I have quite a few tabs open) from links found almost exclusively on Twitter, which makes my eschewing posting links on Twitter seem a bit self-defeating. And yet.

Will future offices be chair free?

It’s been awhile since I wrote about standing or walking at work. I’m a huge fan of both, though I like walking while working a bit more than standing while working. I have in the past wondered if companies would begin to try and get employees to sit less with standing desks. Although I prefer a treadmill desk, a standing desk is much less expensive and would allow more flexibility in furniture positioning. Here’s an article that speculates about a chair-free office.

Some companies (including the one at which she works) are making the effort, but most companies are still traditional desk and chair set ups. Not mentioned, but apparent in the comments on the article, is that there will be resistance to the idea of standing (or even perching) during the day rather than sitting in a traditional chair. And as I’ve documented for myself, it does task time to get used to standing rather than sitting, and even longer to get used to walking while working. One advantage to a a standing desk over a treadmill desk is that it is silent. Even the most expensive treadmills make some noise. I have a homemade desk built for a 20 year old treadmill, and it is anything but quiet.

More Evidence that Treadmill desks are Awesome

Time Magazine discusses a recent study that showed that workers using treadmill desks performed better and were happier. The researchers also looked at bike desks, and the results there were not positive. I tried a bike desk too. I found that I couldn’t be productive while pedaling, so I would stop pedaling and just sit. Here’s an account of one women’s treadmill desk use that is pretty good. Her experience mirrors mine in many ways, including that one month in she’s still finding it hard to really concentrate. even now, after years of daily walking while working I will occasionally stop and stand at the desk if I really need to concentrate.

This is only an abstract to a recent study that tried to evaluate how a shared treadmill would increase the number of steps taken by office workers. Having the desk in the office did get people to move more. Sharing a treadmill desk means that no one walks the entire day as I do, but even and hour or two of moving is better than sitting all day.

My Treadmill Desk Update

In the spirit of these notes, I’ll include my own treadmill desk update. The year 2014 has been my year of “not tracking,” meaning that I have not recorded my walking mileage. I also didn’t record my caloric intake, but that wasn’t new to 2014. The idea was to see if I didn’t keep a record of anything if I could maintain my habits and the weight loss. I’ve discussed my eating previously, so will not in this post.

I continue regularly using my treadmill desk, and when I’m not at the treadmill desk I use my standing desk. The treadmill is in the basement, the standing desk is upstairs, where I can stand by the window and enjoy the natural lighting. The thing I like least about my treadmill desk is its position in the basement. That’s not going to change though, since I have no place to put it except in the basement, and it’s heavy. The movers carried it down when we moved into this house, and there it stays— until we hire movers to move us out of this house.

One change I have made recently is that I am using an external monitor (actually a flat screen TV) while walking, rather than my laptop screen. The ergonomics are much better with the monitor, but with my old laptop it didn’t work well. The new laptop I have works much better with the TV. I figured out how to mirror the screen on the TV, and (unlike the old laptop) sound from the video will use the TV speakers rather than the computer’s. All of this probably reads as though I’m some sort of technophobe or techno-dummy, but I’m not. I do tend to be lazy though, and impatient when technology doesn’t work as promised. Thus I gave up the last time I tried to set up the larger monitor and just used my laptop screen, which is an ergonomic crime— or so I’ve read. Using the laptop screen never bothered me, but it is nicer to have a larger screen to look at. The problem is that I still need to look down quite often because I’m not a very good touch typist. But when reading sources online, the bigger screen is a boon.

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